Belonging and Doing: Political Churches and Black Political Participation

Abstract

The importance of the political church in Black political participation has brought to the attention of scholars the differences among Black churches and their effect on Black mobilization. The Black church has on many occasions transformed itself into a politicized organization. These political churches become settings that encourage political knowledge and skills (Tate, 1993) and communicate political activity as a norm (Calhoun-Brown, 1996). The earlier work on political churches has established the importance of these organizations for voter turnout and other forms of political participation. What has been left unexamined is the nature of the political churches themselves. This project disentangles these churches by looking at the heterogeneity within the structures of the political churches. In general, we seek to understand which of the internal activities of the political church tend to foster acts of political participation. We hypothesize that costunderwriting activities and obligation-creating activities within the church setting have the greatest impact on participation. By examining a robust and expansive operationalization of the political church construct, we find that these types of political church activities matter more than other activities. In specifying how churches may work to directly affect the participation of their members, we seek to expand the scope of general comprehension of political churches.

Gender, Church Involvement, and African-American Political Participation

“…Political Churches. Confirming the work of others (Brown and Brown 2003;McClerking and McDaniel 2005), the promotion of polifical engagement at church is a significant predictor (p < .001) of political engagement, and the interaction term Church's Political Acfivity x Gender is significant at p < .05. Age (p < .01), marital status (p < .1), household income (p < .05), educational attainment (p < .001), and church activity (p < .001) remain significant predictors of political participation.…”

Ideologies of Black churches in New York City and the public health crisis of HIV among Black men who have sex with men

“…Then and now, churches have helped to mobilise Black communities around pressing social and health issues, thereby facilitating positive change (Cone 1969). Scholars have theorised about and debated the mechanisms by which Black churches enable–or fail to enable–mobilisation around social and health issues (Pattillo-McCoy 1998, Harris 1999, Barnes 2005, McClerking and McDaniel 2005). While research has tended to focus on `church culture' (i.e., common rituals and practices) rather than religious ideology, it has also considered the commonly held belief that God is active in worldly affairs (Pattillo-McCoy 1998).…”

“…This sense of sacred assurance, Harris notes, has promoted feelings of personal and collective efficacy among Black Christians involved in church mobilisation efforts. Other researchers have pointed to a number of specific factors and activities that affect church mobilisation including: dialogue and information-sharing among parishioners (McKenzie 2004); prayer groups and gospel music (Barnes 2005); cost-underwriting and obligation-creating activities (McClerking and McDaniel 2005); and a `tool kit' that includes prayer, call-and-response, verbal encouragement, Christian imagery, and a sense of `collective ethos' (Pattillo-McCoy 1998). Recent Black church community mobilisation efforts have focused on a variety of public health issues including care for older adults (Madison and McGadney 2000), prison reintegration (O'Connor et al 1998), and breast and cervical cancer (Shapiro et al 2006), among others.…”

What About Disillusionment? Exploring the Pathways to Black Nationalism

“…They include the contextual variable South/non-South, which, considering the widely-documented regional differences in race relations (see Key's 1954 seminal book on ''southern politics'') is thought to indicate the extent to which African Americans are aware of discrimination (Davis and Brown 2002;Dawson 1994;Tate 1993). Another individuallevel indicator of this same concept is Black political church experience, for such churches function as ''political mobilizers'' and ''agenda setters'' in African-American communities (Calhoun-Brown 1996;Harris 1999;Harris-Lacewell 2004;McClerking and McDaniel 2005;McDaniel 2008). The model also contains the perceived race of the interviewer, owing to the tendency among Blacks to express less ''radical'' viewpoints to White interviewers (see Anderson et al 1988;Davis and Brown 2002), and a variety of demographic variables: gender, age, 8 family income, education, employment status and marital status (see Brown and Shaw 2002;Davis and Brown 2002;Dawson 1994;Tate 1993).…”